1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic equipment operating component function setting system, as applied to various electronic equipment, such as radio equipment, in which a microcomputer circuit is used to control input and output of operating signals, this system selectively setting assignments of control functions for operating components, in accordance with the operator of the equipment and the particular installation location.
2. Related Art
Electronic equipment such as radio equipment has many operating components located on a front panel, the placement of which thereon is done with consideration given to the ease of operation when performing control of the associated functions. For example, the scheme usually followed in the case of radio equipment is that operating components for changing the frequency, which are often operated are placed on the right side, operating components for audio volume adjustment are placed on the left side, and switches used to change the mode or select a frequency band and squelch level adjusting components are located in the center.
There are a variety of methods of mounting operating components to a front panel, the general method employed being that of pre-assembling operating components to a panel board, and then mounting the panel board to the rear surface of the front panel, so that operating parts of the operating components protrude through or are exposed via holes formed in the front panel, with knobs mounted to protruding shafts that form the operating parts of operating components.
The configuration shown in FIG. 4 and FIG. 5 of the accompanying drawings is that of an example applied to a radio receiver, these drawings being an outer perspective view and an exploded view of the various constituent elements thereof.
In these drawings, the reference numeral 101 denotes a die-cast chassis, 102 is a PCB (printed circuit board), onto which is packaged an electronic circuit, 103 is a top cover, 104 is a bottom cover, 105 are operating components such as potentiometers, rotary encoders, and switches, 106 is a liquid-crystal display panel, 107 is a panel board, 108 is a front panel, 109 are knobs, and 110 is a transparent acrylic sheet, the radio receiver 100 being assembled by the following procedure.
First, the PCB 102 is mounted to the die-cast chassis 101 after the connector 102a is mounted to the PCB 102.
The panel board 107 also is formed by a PCB, the various operating components 105 being soldered or brazed into place with the operating parts thereof passing through the holes pre-formed in the panel board 107, the terminals of each being connected by soldering to the conductive pattern parts of the panel board 107, and the LCD panel being mounted to a window formed in the panel board 107.
A connector-terminated cable 107a is also connected to the panel board 107, thereby completing the overall panel board assembly 107b. 
Next, holes and windows are formed also in the front panel 108 at positions corresponding to the holes and windows in the panel board 107, the panel board assembly 107b, to which are mounted the various parts 105, 106, and 107a, being mounted to the rear surface of the front panel 108, and the transparent acrylic sheet 110 being mounted to the window part formed at the front surface of the front panel 108.
Then, the entire front panel 108, to which is mounted the panel board assembly 107b, is mounted to the front surface of the die-cast chassis 101, after which the connector-terminated cable 107a of the panel board assembly 107b is connected to a connector 102a on the PCB 102, and, if there are connectors on the rear surface of the die-cast chassis 101, these are also connected to the PCB 102.
After the above is done, the top cover 103 and the bottom cover 104 are mounted to the die-cast chassis 101, and finally knobs 109 are pressed from the front side onto shafts of operating parts of the operating components 105 passing through holes in the front panel 108, thereby completing the assembly of the product (the radio receiver 100).
Recently, to simplify the assembly process, a bracket or the like, to which individual components are mounted, is fixed to the PCB 102, with the parts 105 and 106 being directly mounted to the PCB 102, along with the electronic circuit, so as to simplify the assembly process.
Although the layout of the operating components on the front panel as described above is done with the assumption of a right-handed operator, the operator of the radio equipment or the like is naturally not necessarily right-handed, and might have lost the use of the right hand for reason of some disability or injury, making operation extremely difficult.
Additionally, in mobile radio equipment installed in a vehicle, with restrictions in the installation location, there are cases in which fixing the location of operating components results in a worsening of ease of operation.
In view of the above-noted situation, although there is a significant need for placement of operating components to accommodate individual operating conditions, with the operating components 105 assembled to the panel board 107 as noted above, it is not possible to freely change the layout positions of the operating components 105 on the front panel 108. If an attempt is made to change the layout positions, it would be necessary to change the conductive path layout of the panel board 107 and the PCB 102 as well, the result being that only a made to order product could accommodate these changes, this product being highly costly.
In much recent electronic equipment, operating input signal are captured as digital information by a microcomputer circuit, which is caused to perform the prescribed control functions, so that operating components having the same attributes often have common specifications. In the case of the above-noted example of a radio receiver, rotary encoders are used to change the frequency or adjust audio volume, pushbutton switches are used to perform mode and band switching, and potentiometers are used for squelch level adjustments and the like, and if operating components with common specifications are used for these functions, parts procurement is facilitated, enabling purchase of a smaller number of parts having the same specifications at one time, thereby providing a reduction in the cost of parts.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention, in view of the above-noted problems, to provide a system for programmably assigning control functions to each operating component, thereby enabling selective placement of operating components for the function controls of a piece of electronic equipment, so as to achieve good ease of operation, adapted to the operation conditions of the equipment at all times.
The present invention is a system for function settings of operating components in a piece of electronic equipment having a circuit configuration wherein an internal microcomputer circuit outputs control signals for functions to be controlled, based on input signals input from each operating component, and which includes groups of operating components of the same type and characteristics. In this system, a connector is provided for making connection between an external computer and the microcomputer circuit, the connection condition therebetween establishing whether a program for making settings of correspondence between input and output ports is to be downloaded from the external computer to the microcomputer circuit, or whether the above-noted program has been previously stored in the above-noted microcomputer circuit, with data that establishes a correspondence between input and output ports of the microcomputer being transferred from the external computer, so that the microcomputer circuit, based on this program, executes the establishment of settings of correspondence between input ports associated with groups of operating components of the same type and characteristics and output ports associated with functions that are to be controlled.
According to the present invention, a microcomputer circuit performs control of the output of control signals with respect to functions that are to be controlled, responsive to operating inputs in the electronic equipment, the setting of correspondences between input and output ports of the microcomputer circuit being selectively executable from the external computer. It is therefore possible to freely establish functional assignments between operating components of the same type and characteristics, thereby enabling the achievement of functional operating component placement adapted to the usage conditions of the electronic equipment.
In the present invention, data that establishes correspondences between input and output ports of a microcomputer circuit is transferred from an external computer, and it is alternately possible to generate this data using the external computer, in which case the display of the external computer displays a layout screen showing the operating component of the electronic equipment, with position information added at the display positions of each of the operating components and a table, in which there is a correspondence set up between the position information of each group of operating components of the same type and characteristics and functional information icons of the functions to be controlled that can be assigned to these operating component groups, the function information icons of this table being dragged and dropped onto display positions of operating components in the layout screen, in an object-oriented type of assignment operation, which facilitates the intuitive generation of the correspondence data.
If the program for setting the input-output port correspondences is provided stored in a recording medium that can be read by the electronic equipment and the external computer, it is possible for the purchaser of the electronic equipment to freely initialize the layout of functional operating components associated with the electronic equipment.